The Learning Conference 2015

Kimberly Haskins is a senior program officer at the Barr Foundation, which has a mission to invest in human, natural, and cultural potential, serving as thoughtful stewards and catalysts. Her portfolio has included early education, charter schools, experiential education, and K–12 district investment. She currently manages the Foundation’s grantmaking in early education, which is focused on ensuring that Boston’s children enter school ready and are reading proficiently or better by third grade. She also co-manages the Barr Fellowship, a program to celebrate and connect extraordinary nonprofit and public school leaders. Kim has been a senior director for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, where she managed a team of staff and volunteers responsible for the annual investment in community-based organizations, and an auditor for Bank of Boston (now Bank of America). Kim holds an MBA and a certificate of nonprofit management from Boston University’s School of Management and a Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kimberly James is an evaluation officer in the Learning, Impact and Innovation team at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Kimberly provides leadership and technical assistance in the foundation’s evaluation-related functions, which includes developing evaluation frameworks; identifying indicators that measure and assess the foundation’s overall progress and impact; partnering with the foundation’s programming staff to integrate learning and evaluation activities; and collaborating with external partners to advance practices in philanthropy and the evaluation field. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is exploring approaches and methods for evaluating their network efforts.

Dr. Taylor is the CEO and a cofounder of Network Impact which provides social-change agents with strategies, tools, research, and consulting expertise to design and use networks for social change. For more than 20 years, Dr. Taylor has worked with public and nonprofit organizations and national foundations on strategy, program development and assessment, most recently with a focus on social impact networks. Over the last decade, she has contributed to the design, implementation and evaluation of a wide range of network initiatives in the U.S., including network organizing to support policies that benefit rural people and places, cross sector initiatives to promote immigrant integration, regional collaborations to end homelessness, and network efforts to increase place-based civic engagement. Dr. Taylor has developed numerous tools for network assessment and works with other field- builders to provide grantmakers and others with practical up-to-date information about effective network evaluation. Dr. Taylor received her Ph.D. In Anthropology from Brandeis University and spent her early professional career working in southern Africa. More information is available at www.networkimpact.org.